Crocus February 2007

[tonyg]

Nothing wrong with a storm in a teacup Lesley ... mixes the sugar in nicely!

Just a few pics today.

Crocus baytopiorum - my 'best' form
Crocus graveolens - open flower from the form pictured earlier with stippled outer petals.
Crocus corsicus 'trade' form (left) and Crocus imperati seed raised (right) - side by side - showing some differences between these closely related taxa.  Thomas point about the yellow throat of this corsicus has raised real doubts in my mind.  However you will see that these two are quite different.

[Maggi Young]

More great pix, Tony. we're getting more crocus opening here ,but not at any great speed... never mind, with the pix from the forum and ours still to come, we are getting a super-long season to enjoy!


Lesley, no need to apologise, you raised a point which has been made before and which we would prefer forumists to adhere to. The fact that neither you, nor I , fully has the grasp of the finer points of digital image manipulation matters little really, since most folks here are in the same boat, I reckon!

[hadacekf]

Tony,
Here are other pictures of the inside of the flower of C. imperati ssp. suaveolens.

[John Forrest]

Super Crocuses from Tony and Franz who obviously grow in the 'banana belt'. Mine are very slow to surface in comparison or are damaged by the weather. Those in pots which are protected are making no real effort despite words of encouragement from me. Just this Crocus korolkowii Kiss of Spring taken before the grey skies came over.
 

[tonyg]

Thanks to Franz for posting the extra pics of C imperati suaveolens.  I think the colour that looked so unusual may just be a trick of the light.  They are beautiful plants and the variation is interesting as always.

[Anthony Darby]

I spotted this crocus hiding in the greenhouse. It was labelled 'Unknown', but looks like a cross between Crocus heuffelianus and C. sieberi, but it could just be a variant of C. s. sieberi? It opened in the warmth of the kitchen.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Whatever it is Anthony : it's a real beauty !!!

[Paddy Tobin]

Never thought I would be posting on the crocus forum as I have only grown those that do well without my intervention in the open garden. However, a recent foray into a few different ones has seen then flowering in a cold greenhouse. Is it a catching disease?

Crocus aff sieberi (corrections accepted!)

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

I think yours is C. sieberi ssp sieberi Anthony. There's a pic of mine on the old Forum Southern Hemisphere, winter June to August. (Maggi, how do you add a link here from somewhere else, like the old Forum? I see a little icon next to the insert email icon - yeah, I'm looking now - but how do you actually GET it there?) Last year mine had a little more colour than yours but the previous year it was marked exactly the same.

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, while there may be a whizzbang gizmo to insert such a link, I do not know which it might be, nor how to use it! I just find the page I want to refer to, right click in the address bar at the top, click copy and then return to my post and click paste where I want it.

Loving all these crocus, thanks chaps!

[Maggi Young]

I think Lesley meant this page: http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/34386.html?1157263318
Her post is from Saturday August 19th.
There are NZ and Aussie crocus in both the southern hemisphere/down under pages of "Flowering Now" as well as in the Crocus section.


This is the main page for the old forum and where to start any search:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topics
 Many many hundreds of pages there with all sorts of great plant photos and tips about cultivation from wherever our forumists garden---If you haven't seen the old forum, I commend it to you. It is now "read only", any comments etc must be posted to this new forum.
I know I've said all this before, but there are always new folks visiting and I want them to feel welcome to join in fully.

[Lesley Cox]

So it's as simple as that? I never really got my head round the Copy and Paste bits. (Now I want to hide my head in a hole in the ground, I'm so embarrassed to admit that.) Better do some homework with a manual but I'm already becoming pear-shaped with the amount of time I spend sitting in this chair.

I do agree about looking back at the Old Forum. Seeing it as if it were new and fresh is a revelation and a great thrill.

[Maggi Young]

Don't fret, Lesley, I've just been struggling with Google earth to find something that Susan says it "right there" as it were, not for me, it isn't!! See the" How High "etc thread! We shouldn't worry about our shape either, look at it this way, we are to pears what those giant onions are to onions.... the biggest and the best 

[tonyg]

Anthony's crocus is indeed a form of the variable Crocus sieberi ssp sieberi.  As you will see below it can vary from almost pure white to almost completely dark purple on the outer three petals ... with any variation in between!  It is more unusual for the inner petals to be marked or shaded purple, I wonder if this is just feature of cultivated plants where hybridisation with other subspecies of C sieberi is possible.  If anyone has experience of this in the wild - let us know.  In 'Flowers of Crete' (Fielding & Turland) there is a picture of 12 very differently marked flowers all from a small area, all have white inner petals.  I have over a dozen different forms.

[I.S.]

  Tony- very nice and indicative pics as usualy.
   I would like to post some more photos from last week. these are bigest size which I have seen before.
That may cause of soil. It was a black sticky kind of soil which  is number one for agriculture. Whatever they were realy attractive. That may gives me some ideas for growing. If I am right they are all c. biflorus biflorus.